


but sir, that's my emotional support ghost

by rosegardeninwinter



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Canon Compliant, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Ghosts, Hijacked Peeta Mellark, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, and Lucy Gray fascinates me, ghost!Lucy Gray, have this little crack concept, it's totally platonic let me make that clear I just need Peeta to have a friend in his captivity, lots of songs, they're both silver tongued performers soooo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:34:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24816943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosegardeninwinter/pseuds/rosegardeninwinter
Summary: this is a collection of drabbles based on a silly little (and yet I hope well executed) concept I'm fond of wherein the ghost of Lucy Gray appears to Peeta during his Capitol captivity and provides him with some psychological shielding and comfort, mostly because I want an excuse to write songs for her to sing, Peeta needs a big sister figure (to be clear, their relationship is exceedingly platonic; her pet names are because she's southern, not because she has a thing for him), and the ghosts of District 12 are my fav; they're in chronological order for now, but as it's a drabble collection, they may not stay that way - enjoy!
Relationships: Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark
Comments: 19
Kudos: 58





	1. down in the valley

“Call her off, Lucy Gray,” the president says, as calmly as he ever could be calm around her.

He is old, but she stands in her garish ruffles and makeup, young as he remembers. Her eyes are sad, but they don’t look at him. They grow wide and pained as they take in the boy bound to the metal table between them, at the needles in his arms, at his cracked and bleeding skin. “Call off your mockingjay, or I’ll kill him.”

“She’s not _my_ mockingjay, you stupid bastard. Don’t you know anything? Mockingjays are free. Mockingjays copy.”

“She knows your songs.”

“Not my songs,” she snaps. “Anyone’s songs. Ain’t up to me how she uses them.”

One of the doctors ups the dosage of venom and the boy arches and screams. The colorful ghost reaches out a hand to cup his trembling cheek. The boy freezes for a heartbeat, eyes widening. “Who - ?”

Lucy Gray puts a finger to her lips. “Hush now. Easy, Peeta. Easy, honey.” Then she starts to hum, a song the president remembers, vaguely, along with the stench of animals. “That bad man’s gonna try and turn you inside out, baby. But you remember this song and you’re gonna be fine. You remember the little girl in the rain, and you remember this song.”

The boy’s eyes blink slowly, trustingly, up at her. He nods feebly against her palm. “You rest up a little,” Lucy Gray says. “Rest up.”

The president can hear the doctors saying something about “going under.” The boy’s eyes roll up, almost blissfully, into his head. He’s out, for the moment, beyond pain. Lucy Gray gives his cheek a gentle stroke, and meets the president’s eyes at last.

“Lot of dead men in your wake,” she says, a half snarl. “But I don’t recall ever telling you what happens when the dead man’s lover finds out who strung him up.” She shrugs. “Guess you’re gonna find out.”

She grins, feral, hateful. “Show’s not over,” she taunts, sing song.

And then, with a wild kind of laugh, she’s gone.


	2. peeta's lullaby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> more softness from Lucy Gray and Peeta, this time with an original song; the last line of the song doesn’t contain a typo - it’s “stings” on purpose :D

The next time the girl in the colors appears in his cell, she has a guitar in her hands and there are papers floating about her head, as if on water. He isn’t startled. He’s used to the hallucinations - and she’s one of the more bearable ones. He stares at her from across the card house he’s making.

“You’re back.” His voice is croaky with disuse.

“Just reconnoitering, baby. Never too far away, though.”

“You’re not really here, though. I made you up in my mind. Or they did. Or - ” He gets confused as the memories start to swirl, shimmering so loudly he can hear them, like the high pitched ring of a bell. He groans.

“Hey now! Get!” She claps her hands together hard. It’s sharp and loud, and snaps him out of it, but he gets the idea that she’s not angry at him. It sounds like she’s shooing a stray. Maybe she’s shooing the shiny memories away. He didn’t see her move, but she’s suddenly seated next to him against the wall, shoulder to shoulder. When she takes his hand, her fingers are warm and steady. She rubs the cuff marks on his wrist with her thumb.

“Funny thing to make up,” she says softly. “A ghost you can touch.”

He doesn’t say anything. He watches her thumb move in a circle over a puckered scab, down a distended vein in his arm. “You’re in an awful way there’s no denying,” she murmurs. “But you’re so strong, angel.”

“I’m not. She’s the survivor. Not me.”

“Now who told you such a nonsense thing?”

“My mother.” It comes out choked. “I miss my mother.”

The ghost leans her forehead against his temple. “Whatcha miss?”

“I - I don’t know. She wasn’t always mean. Right at the beginning. She used to tell me bedtime stories. I think. I don’t remember.” He bunches his fists and presses them against his eyes in frustration.

“I lost my Ma when I was young. I know it. I’m not much of a storyteller. But tell you what ... ”

She reaches up and plucks one of the papers out of the air. It’s blank, but as she touches it, words appear in black ink, scribbled and underscored and circled, a frenetic display of creativity.

“What’s that?” He wipes his streaming eyes as she settles the paper in front of her and strums her guitar strings once, the twanging, smoky sound sending a thrum through his entire body.

“Wrote you a song.”

“You wrote me a song? Just - just now?”

“I’ve got so many stored up in my head they just bleed outta my fingertips,” says the ghost.

“Won’t someone hear?”

“Just you, honey.” She plucks a few notes in quick succession. “Alrighty. Get comfortable. Put your head down.”

Slowly, sore and increasingly feeble, he curls up on the floor with his head against her lap, closing out the dim, grimy glare of the perpetually buzzing lights.

“Want you to think of something nice,” says the girl, playing a lulling melody. “What’re you gonna think of, baby? I’m gonna sing your song, and you tell me what you’re gonna think on so you don’t forget.”

“A sunset,” he breathes out. Soft orange light. Pink clouds. Wind, soft and cool, promising a cozy evening.

“Where’s this sunset?” she whispers.

“Doesn’t matter. Wherever. With her.” Katniss dozing dreamily in his arms, face smoothed from worry, happy.

The ghost laughs gently. “Good. Keep on imagining that.”

It isn’t often that he can manage to sleep, when they even let him try, but he fades away into a shallow rest as the girl in the colors fills the tiny cell with her music.

_I’ve met a girl_

_With eyes like a storm_

_She loves a boy_

_Who keeps her so warm_

_And he doesn’t know_

_Just what he can do_

_Hold on for her, love_

_She’s waiting for you_

_I knew a man_

_Thought himself a king_

_But I learned the truth_

_He don’t know a thing_

_You can’t tame a heart_

_Like a puppet with stings_

_And the show isn’t over_

_Till the mockingjay sings_


	3. colored roses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> set in Tigris's basement in Mockingjay; as Peeta starts to regain control of his mind, Lucy Gray comes to tell him goodbye

_“Katniss will pick whoever she thinks she can’t survive without.”_

He feels like he should have said something to that. It doesn’t sit right with him, feels unfair to the girl he loved.

_Loves._ He does, doesn’t he? He could learn to again. If they all make it out of this. Which they won’t. He won’t, surely.

He leans his head against the bannister. He hopes she does, at least. He’s used to having dying wishes. This is his new one. His perpetual one. He’s a mutt. Mutts don’t make it out of the arena. But she can.

“You know I don’t like it when you think like that,” says the voice.

He doesn’t look up. He rolls his eyes. “You being here doesn’t exactly recommend me as a sane member of society, Lucy Gray.”

“How many times do I have to tell you? I ain’t in your mind. I go where I want.”

“Why follow me, though?”

“We’re alike,” she says simply.

“You’re more like her.”

“Hardly.” She pauses. “I’m a much better singer.”

His head snaps up to glare at her and he sees she’s laughing. “Still smitten.”

He frowns but he can’t help slumping into her palm when she sets it against his cheek. She was his only friend for months. She runs her thumb underneath his eye, then drops her hand to touch his throat. It’s sore and raw from shouting and gagging on sewer water. Feels like he’s had a rope around it.

“I came to tell you goodbye,” she murmurs and his frown vanishes immediately and he stares at her in a half panic.

“Why?”

“You don’t need me anymore,” she says.

“Wait, no! Don’t go, Lucy Gray, please.”

“Hush,” she chides. ”My clever homing bird. I’ve given you my music.” She taps his temple. “But I don’t have the key to this cage.” She nods with a sly smile to where Katniss is curled. Peeta’s heart skips at the memory of Katniss’s mouth crushed desperately to his. “She does.”

Lucy Gray leans forward and kisses his forehead. “The door’s unlocked,” she says. “It’s time to fly away.”

“Where?”

Lucy Gray’s bright eyes darken. She stands and gazes at the sleeping archer in her nest of furs. “You’ll know where.” She bites her lip. “There was a time,” she says sadly, “when I liked roses.”

Peeta shivers at the word and Lucy Gray nods. “I know. Just - just remember,” she says, already beginning to fade, “that there are wild roses too. Yellow ones. Pink ones.” She swishes her skirt. “Colors.”

“Okay,” he says, then, quickly, before she disappears completely. “Lucy Gray? I’ll miss you.”

Her grin is mischievous and her whisper is faint. “Don’t,” she says. “I’ll see you around, baby.”


	4. under the willow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucy Gray pays Peeta a visit and leaves a gift for our happy couple

He lays out the calico picnic blanket and secures it with stones at each of the corners to keep the mid June wind from sending it down the grassy slope and into the meadow below. The spreading willow casts sunlight down on the bread and honey, the jar of lemonade, the bundle of blue wildflowers, lends a touch of enchantment he decides can only be a good sign. And really, this is all a formality, but he figures they could use a little tradition in their lives after all the customs they’ve broken. 

She’ll be along soon, his lover of four years, in the outfit he helped her pick out before she shooed him out to get ready. She’s so funny, Katniss. One moment she’s skinning a rabbit and poking fun at Brit Hayberry’s fancy toasting crown and the next she’s combing her own hair out with honeysuckle water in the name of making this date special. 

He bets she’s caught on to what he’s planning to do already. It sets him at ease. He leans his back against the tree trunk, satisfied with his handiwork. 

“All that for me, baby?” 

Peeta jumps to his feet, sending the lemonade jar toppling, but she’s there in a flash quick as thought, steadying it before it can spill a drop. 

She wears an azalea pink gown, muddy at the knees, instead of her streamers of multicolored ribbons, but her smile is sly and sweet as ever. For a horrible heartbeat he’s sure he’s hallucinating, and of today on all days for him to have an episode, but he remembers lying with his head in her lap on cold tile, feeling that she was real. Maybe not as real as Katniss, as the life they’ve built, as the love she’s given him, but real just the same. 

“You really do go wherever you want, don’t you?” he says at last, a shaky laugh escaping him. 

The ghost plops down on the blanket and grins at him. “This was my meadow before it was yours,” she says. 

“You’re — you’re from here?”

She hums and gazes out at the late afternoon sky. “I’m from nowhere,” she says. “I’m from everywhere.” 

“I’ll never understand you, Lucy Gray,” he says. 

“I like it that way, baby,” she laughs and then, glancing over his shoulder, “Hello there, little songbird.” 

Peeta’s head snaps around. Katniss, her long braid almost down to her waist, is staring at Lucy Gray. 

Not with jealousy, he realizes, not betrayal, like he’s got another girl — she trusts him too completely to think that. But like she instinctively knows there’s something otherworldly about his once cell mate. He told her once, about the girl in the colors, but only like he’d tell her about any other figment of hope that got him through. Except she wasn’t a figment. The fact that Katniss sees her confirms that once and for all. 

“Who is this?” Katniss breathes.

“I’m the thorn stuck in the side of the white rose, darling,” Lucy Gray replies, cryptically   
matter of fact. “Never quite sharp enough, though. Not like you and your boy. Always a sight too close to the flower. The victor no one ever knew.” 

Katniss swallows hard and Peeta gapes. 

“You didn’t tell me that,” he says. 

“Wasn’t important,” Lucy Gray says with a smirk. “Isn’t important.” 

“You’re her, aren’t you?” Katniss murmurs, recognition and guilty gratitude dawning across her features. “The girl in the colors. You protected him when I couldn’t.” 

Lucy Gray shakes her head. “You protected him,” she corrects. “The memory of you. The love of you. I just reminded him from time to time. I couldn’t save him.”

“You did that, Katniss,” Peeta adds, holding out his hand to her. She bites her lip and sits down beside him, taking his hand and caressing his scarred wrist. 

Lucy Gray stands. “I came to give you my congratulations,” she says with a wink. “And a gift.” 

It’s Peeta’s turn to shake his head. “You don’t need to do anything for us, Lucy Gray.” 

“Needing is one thing,” Lucy Gray says. “Wanting to is another.” The wind plays around her, billowing her skirt, fluttering her gossamer sleeves, tossing her hair, making her look even more ethereal than usual, a flurry of magenta fabric and gold eyes. “Y’all take care of each other, alright?” 

Leaves tug free of the willow and the wildflowers at her feet bend and sway, and then, in a blink of sunlight and shadow, she’s gone. 

“She’s always like that,” he starts to say, but Katniss shushes him. 

“Listen,” she says, and her eyes are glassy as she leans her head against his shoulder. It takes a second for him to pick it up, but when he does he understands her emotion. 

There’s music coming from the forest. A chorus of haunting harmonies in Lucy Gray’s voice. Mockingjays, chirping and trilling the Valley Song. 

“Katniss?” he says, speeches and sentiment be damned. She understands what he’s asking. 

“Yes,” is her sure and easy reply, sighed against his mouth as she kisses him to the sound of a sunny schoolroom more than fifteen years ago. 


End file.
